機場快線班次評估

Description of the Capacity

Across the Tsing Ma Bridge, the Airport Express and the Tung Chung Line trains use the same pair of tracks. The design of the bridge limits the frequency of trains crossing the bridge to about one train in each direction every 135 seconds.

Between Tsing Yi and Kowloon, the Airport Express and the Tung Chung Line trains run on separate tracks thus providing more capacity than on Lantau.

On the Tung Chung Line, some of this additional capacity is used for supplementing the basic Hong Kong / Tung Chung service with a Hong Kong / Tsing Yi service.

Currently the additional capacity on the Airport Express line is not used and hence there is spare capacity on that line for the proposed Hong Kong / Kam Sheung Road service.

A line with no stations has a higher capacity than a line with stations as the capacity of a line is governed by the time a train is stationary at a station platform. Between Kowloon and Hong Kong the Airport Express and the Tung Chung Line trains share the same pair of tracks, but trains do not stop over this length of track. There is thus capacity over this section for the services on both lines.

Services

The Hong Kong Island Express runs between Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Interchange at Kam Sheung Road making use of the Airport Express tracks between Hong Kong and Tsing Yi and a dedicated pair of tracks between Tsing Yi and Kam Sheung Road.

In addition to the Hong Kong Island Express, Government has indicated that consideration has also to be given to a rail service to the transport interchange for the proposed Macau – Zhuhai Bridge terminal. This rail connection would be a spur line off the existing Airport Line thus there would be three rail services on Lantau, the Airport Express, the Tung Chung Line and that serving the Macau – Zhuhai Bridge. This latter service would use the Tung Chung Line tracks between Tsing Yi and Kowloon thus serving Lai King, Nam Chung and Olympic Stations in addition to the Tung Chung Line stations at Tsing Yi, Kowloon and Hong Kong.

It is proposed that every 10 minutes there would be one Airport Express train, one Macau – Zhuhai Bridge train and two trains from Tung Chung. This would result in 24 trains in the hour which is almost the limit that can be carried by the Tsing Ma Bridge.

The four tracks between Tsing Yi and Kowloon provide capacity for one Hong Kong Island Express train (Hong Kong / Kam Sheung Road) and for one additional Tung Chung Line train (Hong Kong / Tsing Yi) every ten minutes in addition to the service crossing the Tsing Ma Bridge.

At Kowloon and Hong Kong Stations the Airport Express and the Hong Kong Island Express would use the Airport Express platforms, two trains every 10 minutes, equivalent to 12 trains per hour – one less than the design capacity of 13 trains per hour. The Tung Chung Line trains and those serving the Macau – Zhuhai Bridge would use the Tung Chung Line platforms, four trains in 10 minutes, equivalent to 24 trains per hours – less than the design capacity of 27 trains per hour.